Not enough time. That’s the problem. Americans are too busy. They don’t know how to enjoy life. They don’t have time to prepare a meal and then sit down and enjoy it. Too many McDonald’s meals.
Voila. If only we could make our lives more French and less fries.
That’s what Mireille Guiliano is trying to tell us.
She smiles. She laughs. She’s the bubbles in the champagne she sells at her day job. She’s French. And she isn’t fat.
Why? Because as her “little book” announces in the title, “French Women Don’t Get Fat.”
She was once — when she visited America for the first time. What did she know? She was a teenager. An exchange student. She blimped up 30 pounds, which on her tiny 5-foot-3-inch frame made her appear 5 by 5. Now, four decades later, that reckless diversion, her recovery and the life she rediscovered have become inspirations for her book.
Guiliano is a rarity in many ways. She’s CEO of Clicquot, one of the world’s most prestigious champagne bottlers. She loves America. She is married to an Italian (Edward Guiliano is president of the New York Institute of Technology). She holds French and American passports. She spends more time here — her office is in New York — than she does in France. She is neither nutritionist nor doctor and, until a short time ago, she was not a published author. It’s an appellation that still befuddles her, as does the fact that her book has sold more than 500,000 copies.
Guiliano has been approached about a TV cooking series, a lifestyle show, a movie and she’s going to the Oscar show.
“It’s second only to ‘Harry Potter,’ ” she says of the book, curling up the sides of her mouth in a quizzical smile as she enjoys — really enjoys — lunch while promoting her book and her wine at Cafe L’Europe in Palm Beach.
Now don’t run off in the wrong direction. This isn’t the “Guiliano Diet.” Her book is about a lifestyle.
Forget low-carbs. Ignore high-protein. Too reckless. Too du jour. As she likes to put it: “French women think about good things to eat; American women typically worry about bad things to eat.”
For Guiliano, 58, life is a matter of balance, a harkening back to the ancient principle of a sound mind in a sound body.
“This is such a curious nation,” she said of the United States. While Europeans “are much more stuffy, they don’t change,” Americans, paradoxically, embrace the new, yet often are thwarted by a Puritanism that regularly battles with the sensual.
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Recalled Guiliano, her dark eyes always mischievous: “I ordered dessert in a restaurant and the waiter said, `That’s sinfully delicious.’ I said, `It’s delicious, but why is it sinful?’
Guiliano does not believe Americans are bulbously beyond hope. Find a balance and you’ll do fine, she says. A small portion can go a long way. Size matters too much to Americans. They supersize everything. They load their coffee at Starbucks with whipped cream. Eat the big muffin. Then they diet, Pritikin to Atkins to South Beach, and burn out in a few weeks.
A little seasoning, she believes, does wonders. Similarly, she likes to enhance her message by peppering her words with easily remembered French phrases.
One of the most important is bien dans sa peau — comfortable in his or her own skin — the weight at which you say, “I feel good and I look good.”
Four months after she came to America as a teenager, she scared herself.
“I went totally off track, eating seven meals a day,” she said as she sipped her ever-present champagne — the “wine for optimists” — and savored her four-course lunch of soft-boiled egg with caviar, butter-poached lobster, roasted medallion of veal with foie gras and braised leek ravioli and a dessert sampler.
“I ate chocolate chip cookies. I discovered ice cream was not only for the summer but you could eat it every day of your life. One day I was in front of a mirror and I had a shock.”
And it worsened when she returned home at the end of her year abroad and her father greeted her with, “You look like a sack of potatoes.” The sting remains today. She was 19, wearing loose flannel shifts, crying herself to sleep, dodging mirrors. Until her mother arranged a meeting with the town physician. No problem, he told her, just a matter of a few “old French tricks.”
The French approach she outlines in the book works, she says.
Guiliano believes the book appeals not only to people who realize diets don’t work but to people who love France, French culture, French food and French fashion. It goes beyond the food.
– – –
`Old French tricks’ for slimming down
When Mireille Guiliano was a teenager, she spent a year in America and learned eating habits that caused her to pack on extra pounds. Upon her return to France, Guiliano’s mother took her daughter to the town physician. Here are the “old French tricks” that helped her slim down for the rest of her life:
Trick No. 1: Keep a diary of everything you eat for three weeks. Surprise, surprise! At school in Paris, Mireille passed 16 pastry shops and she was eating her way through each one. She was also eating on the run, standing up and not preparing her own food.
Trick No. 2: Change your lifestyle. Not cold turkey. Gradually. Finding a balance has more to do with your mind than your stomach. Deal with the little demons. With her mind in gear, her body followed. Months later, Guiliano was down 12 pounds.
Here’s how she did it:
– Keep weight loss slow and steady.
– Keep variety in your meals.
– Drink lots of water.
– Make eating a ritual by dining at a table with real plates and cloth napkins. No TV or newspaper.
– Take occasional breaks between bites to enjoy what you’re eating and drinking. Chew slowly.
– Control portions (none larger than a small apple).
– Don’t stock offending foods. If it’s not there, you can’t eat it!
– Move. Walk, exercise, whatever.
– Find substitutes and pacifiers.
– Never go hungry. Have a tiny snack in case of a hunger attack.
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– Give yourself small weekend rewards.